Fatherhood
by Ryeloza
Summary: Snapshots of moments between the dads of Wisteria Lane and their kids.
1. One

**Disclaimer: **I have absolutely nothing to do with _Desperate Housewives,_ and this is in no way for profit.

**Story Summary: **Snapshots of moments between the dads of Wisteria Lane and their kids.

**Chapter Summary: **Carlos and his girls. Takes place during the season six episode "The Chase."

**Fatherhood**

By **Ryeloza**

**One**

As Carlos smoothes calamine lotion over the pox marring Celia's face, she remains quiet and squirms only a little to combat the itch. It is this, the calm, sensitive nature of his child—so different than either him or Gabrielle—that reminds Carlos of his mother. Already he envisions her growing up to be a strong and capable woman; one who can calculate the world around her because she's spent so much time observing it.

"There." He dots the end of her nose with the lotion and smiles. "Does that help?"

Celia shrugs her shoulders. "Can we try to call Mom again?"

Carlos thinks of the two calls he already made—one to Gaby's cell phone voicemail and the other to Bob and Lee's answering machine—and says, "We'll call Mommy tomorrow. It's time for bed." He stands and pulls back the covers on Celia's bed so she crawl in, but when he turns to face her again she's gone. "Celia?"

A quick search of Celia's usual hiding spots reveals nothing, and it isn't until Carlos opens the door to scan his own room that he finds his youngest. She's slipped into the bed and pulled the covers up to her chin. "What are you doing, sweetie? It's bedtime."

"I wanna sleep in here."

A protest dies on the tip of Carlos' tongue as he stares into Celia's tired brown eyes. "Okay," he murmurs, acquiescing without regret. Who is he to deny his sick little girl? "But just tonight."

Carlos comes over and gets into the other side of the bed, planting a kiss on Celia's forehead before turning off the light. It's absurdly early; he hasn't gone to bed at this time since he was a kid, but he's so exhausted that he doesn't care. As it is, he's half-asleep when the door opens minutes later and he hears Juanita ask, "Can I sleep in here too?"

"Yep," Celia responds before Carlos can. He doesn't contradict her. In an instant, Juanita pads across the room, and Carlos rolls closer to Celia so there's room for her.

That night is restless, but as Celia uses his arm as a replacement teddy bear and Juanita kicks him more than once, Carlos can't help but smile. This is every reason he wanted to be a father.


	2. Two

**Disclaimer: **No, it is not mine. I only wish it was.

**Chapter Summary: **Tom's having some trouble adjusting to this whole stay-at-home dad thing. Takes place in season 2 between "You'll Never Get Away from Me" and "My Heart Belongs to Daddy."

**Fatherhood**

By **Ryeloza**

**Two**

Parker has his elbows on the table, chin cupped in his hands, looking at Tom very suspiciously, and it takes everything in Tom's power to keep the big, fake smile plastered on his face. "Are you sure about this?" Parker asks. Somewhere in the back of Tom's mind, he feels like he should echo the question right back at his son. Instead, he says, maybe a bit too enthusiastically, "Of course I'm sure! This is going to be great!"

Mistake number one.

Parker gives this tiny little sigh and cocks his head to the side. "Well, okay." It's the most pathetic agreement Tom has ever heard.

"Parker Lindquist Scavo," he says, not really chiding him, just trying to bolster his son's confidence, "are you doubting your old dad?"

"Nooo." Parker shrugs. "It's just that Mommy _promised_…"

"Well you know I can do anything Mommy can do."

Mistake number two.

"Really?" asks Parker—he sounds like he doesn't really believe Tom; it's the tiniest bit insulting.

"Of course! In fact, these are going to be the best cupcakes ever! Even better than Mommy's!"

Mistake number three.

Parker grins. For the first time since he got home from school, the sulky little expression slips off of his face, and Tom actually thinks for a second that this is all going to turn out great.

Mistake number four.

The truth is that Tom has never baked anything in his life, but he's actually a pretty good cook, so he figures that it can't be any harder than that is. And Parker had been devastatingly insistent ("I'm supposed to take a birthday snack to school tomorrow, and last year Mommy _promised_ we'd make cupcakes this year because last year it was only cookies and cookies are for baby preschoolers!"); Tom found it impossible to say no in the face of that logic. Of course, his initial idea had been to go to the bakery, but that had been met with a trembling lip and huge eyes—"But Mommy _promised_ we'd make them together!"

In some way, it feels like a test. Last week had been hard enough. First Parker acting absolutely fit to be tied because _Mommy_ couldn't take him to school, and then the near tirade from the twins after he mixed up the fact that Porter likes grape jelly and Preston likes strawberry ("_Mommy_ never mixed up our sandwiches")—when it was all said and done, it had been an unbearably long week. This cupcake thing seems like his chance to prove that he can pull off this stay-at-home parent thing as well as Lynette did.

Because he's really beginning to doubt that he's going to be any good at this at all.

"Okay!" He claps his hands together and grins. "So we need a recipe!"

Parker blinks expectantly; Tom nods and turns to hunt down Lynette's recipe box. It takes about five minutes to find it, and then another five minutes to actually pull out the recipe, and as he stands there reading it, it becomes harder and harder to keep the smile plastered on his face.

"What's first?" Parker demands. Really, ten minutes is a phenomenal amount of time for him to be patient; Tom is kind of impressed.

"We-ell…We preheat the oven."

"I'm not allowed to touch the oven."

"I know." Tom quickly sets it to 350 and looks desperately for something Parker can do, but there's really nothing until they track down all of the ingredients. "Why don't you," he starts hesitantly, "get out the eggs and milk? And I'll find the rest of this stuff."

"Okay."

Tom begins to dig through the cupboards, finding the mixer and bowl, the cupcake pan, and most of the basic ingredients, but he has no idea if they even have those nifty little paper cups the cupcakes go in. "And what the hell is baking chocolate?" he mutters. He glances at Parker, who is back at the table looking at everything with a little more confidence; it makes Tom feel better—this _looks_ right at least. "Parker," he says, "do we have any chocolate bars in the fridge?"

His son scrambles back to the refrigerator and pulls out a couple of Hershey bars, and Tom nods approvingly. Chocolate is chocolate, after all. "Unwrap a couple bars and put them in a little bowl, okay? We need to melt it."

"Cool!"

Parker does as he asks quickly as Tom decides that the little paper cups are probably more decorative than anything else, and he starts to dump the wet ingredients into the bowl (even he knows better than to let a six-year-old attempt that). Then he sticks the bowl of chocolate into the microwave and sets it on high, and then goes over to assist Parker with mixing in the stuff like flour and baking soda. They add the chocolate last, and neither of them can resist licking the bowl when they're done.

"See?" he shouts over the noise of the mixer. "I told you this would work out!"

They pour the gooey batter into the cupcake pan, stick it in the oven, and Tom feels absolutely triumphant for the next hour or so. Especially because Parker is nearly jumping up and down in excitement by the time they pull them out of the oven. "Can we try one? Please, please, please!"

The recipe says to let them cool completely before they ice them, but Tom shrugs, slaps some icing onto one of them and tugs it out of the pan. Except, it kind of doesn't come out. The top rips off and the bottom seems to just kind of stick in the pan which should send up a warning flag, but Tom just thinks it's probably because they're not cool yet. He tears the top in half and hands it to Parker; they both stuff it into their mouths…

It's about two seconds before Tom's face wrinkles in disgust—he turns and grabs a paper towel and spits out the mess; Parker just turns and spits his into one of the dirty bowls on the table. "Oh God," he chokes, opening the fridge and pulling out a bottle of water to try to drown out the taste. "That is not right!"

He glances at Parker, really not sure what to expect. His son is sort of just standing there, sticking out his tongue like it's too gross to be in his mouth, and sadly, Tom hands him the bottle of water. "Sorry, buddy," he says, trying to sound positive even though he kind of feels like crying. "You know what we'll do? We'll call Mommy, and she can pick up some cupcakes on the way home from work. And they are going to be soooo much better than these! All the kids are gonna love them."

Parker shrugs. "Okay."

"Yeah? Okay?"

"Okay." Parker looks from the pan to Tom and smiles. "But can we give these to Porter and Preston? It'd be so funny!"

Suddenly, Tom feels like maybe he can do this after all.


End file.
